I changed
my plans. I decided to transform one of the stop over of less than 24 hours
in New Zealand in a full stay of more than three weeks. They always
tell me that New Zealand is SO a beautiful country…

And I’ll be
paying perhaps some debt to my past. You know, the very second book I ever
read in English (not knowing anything about it), ages ago, has been “The
Lord of the Rings”…

But that’s
NOT all. Perhaps there’ll be interesting news in the future.

And here I
remained for ten days, lulled to sleep by the soft sound of the waves three
meters out of my little window and helped by the perfect blackness of the
night when the generator was shut off.

Here the
time does not exist, it felt perfectly well to rock for half an hour on the
hammock, slowly thinking to all and to nothing, waiting perhaps only for the
slow drums signalling that breakfast, or perhaps it was already lunch, was
arranged.

Nonetheless,
the call of the ocean is powerful and I went as soon as possible into the
water, at least in the beautiful drop-off on the west side of the island,
with the camera and sometimes with the gun.

Finding, at
really five minute swim from the door of the my Bure, everywhere dazzlingly
coloured corals and exquisite sea creatures, even a little Sea Snake. And
fish.

The very
first time I was in the water, toying with macro pictures, a faint movement
behind me: it’s a big Napoleon Fish or Giant Wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus)
of about forty kilos, perhaps more bewildered than me, that floats away
after a little while.

The picture
is not a good one but it’s here only for corroboration.

Once I've
even seen a Spanish Mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson), in 10 m of
water!

Alas, the
weather. As you can clearly see in the first picture, and from what you can
deduce by the last one, with the rainbow, the weather again played havoc to my attempts to
take a boat and go out spearfishing “seriously”.

Oh, I tried,
and even succeeded a couple of times, but the very first attempt the water
was a bad 10-14 m of visibility, the flasher dangling useless in the yellow
water. And this in different locations, both on the east and the west side
of the island.

Then we had
anotherhurricane (I think it's the fourth from the start of my
trip...) moving form the Solomon Islands
to south, against us, and we had many days with strong winds and heavy, if
rapid, rains, and consequent repeated cancellations of the trip.

By the way,
I can personally testify (and my computer with me) that the Bure is really
an excellent dwelling: not even a drop of rain went in.

The last
attempt was almost good but it was thwarted by a problem and a
misunderstanding with the gasoline needed.

The water
anyway was clean and blue. I had beautiful dives in calm waters. Sadly, no fish to
speak about.

Local knowledge is paramount but also is the unavoidable fact that not
always some fish, even regularly taken by line, could by this inferred we
can fish it underwater. We should really always have a check with a nautical
chart and, possibly, a sounder.

It’s NOT so impossible to think about that. Consider,
the least expensive and portable of sounders could really skyrocket our
possibilities to find beautiful fish. Instead, in my case, of a heavy scale
till 100 kilos for weighting fish that for now weighted only luggage!

The goodbyes were even warmer
than the greetings: almost all the staff went with us in the boat waiting
for the "Yellow Boat", always singing and playing, all the women with bright
flowers in their hair, and, as a long term guest, they regaled me with a
fragrant frangipani flower garland, symbol of good travelling.

I arrive
today to Long Beach Backpackers. Tel. 666 66 44, you'll hear a double beep,
then compose 3032. It's a switch from the telephone line to a radio call,
the only connection they have there.

The trip
from the mainland to Matacawalevu is astonishing. On your way you can
encounter resorts in sandy islands so little that you can’t even think to
run around it, you would spin on your heels. And you can really believe that
even a minor increase on the ocean level can damage such tiny speck of life
(and tourism).